Though Earth Hour is still a good 3 months away, it’s worth it to consider how much electricity we use needlessly during the holidays. As the WWF just recently announced their plans for Earth Hour 2009, let us be inspired by last year’s efforts, and remember to switch off not only on March 28th, but all year round! [Read more]

Baby steps through the office, baby steps out the door, it works! It works! All I have to do… just take one little step at a time, and I can do anything! Baby step throughout the office, Baby step throughout the office. My Baby Steps plan is to make a small change each time I learn about a new method/product. Or, more likely, when something runs out (like shampoo), I’ll replace it with an eco-friendly method. My first step is actually quite a big one: The Diva Cup. The Diva Cup is similar to the Keeper – though the Keeper is no longer available in Canada. The Diva Cup is an alternative to tampons and pads. Made of medical grade silicon, the cup avoids any risk of carcinogenic or other toxic effects because it doesn’t... [Read more]

Thanks to a tip from T Magazine’s Quote Unquote column, I discovered a new biodegradable credit card made available by Discover Card. Discover claims the card is made by 99% biodegradable PVC – which means 99% of the card will biodegrade in landfills, water, soil, compost, or any micro-organisms that are present. They expect this process to happen within a whopping 5 years, though don’t specify what composting conditions the card required to be able to biodegrade within that time. I also wonder what that 1% is that could potentially be sitting in your backyard compost bin, hmmm…. What do you think? Is this a genuine environmental effort on Discover’s part? Or a brilliant marketing idea to reach those eco-conscious... [Read more]

Colin Beavan is No Impact Man and the newest addition to my list of Facebook friends. He is a self-professed “guilty liberal” who finally snapped and in February of 2007 made a giant decision – one that includes his wife, 2-year-old daughter and 4-year-old dog – to conduct a year-long experiment to make no net impact on the world. “In other words, no trash, no carbon emissions, no toxins in the water, no elevators, no subway, no products in packaging, no plastics, no air conditioning, no TV, no toilets…” Did I mention they did this while living in New York City. “Saving the world can’t be left to the country bumpkins.” He says. “It’s an urban problem.” [Read more]

I’m lucky that my older brother’s clothes were not forced upon me as hand-me-downs – at least, not that I can remember in that scarred-me-for-life kind of way. I wasn’t fortunate to have any older sisters, female cousins, or close family friends to hand down to me. A few holiday seasons ago, my little cousin Emily showed up at our family gathering with three garbage bags full of her clothes. She said that one of her favourite moments as a young girl was when I would pass along my no longer valued items – from pants and shirts, to belts and bags. I had never known that she enjoyed this pseudo-bonding with her bigger cousin; but I had a chance to understand it myself when she arrived with her own discards. Though they were intended for... [Read more]